Something about a language barrier

My eyes opened and I picked up my cellphone to check the time: 6:30am.  Good morning Quebec!  Normally I am a firm believer that any hour before 8am was created for sleeping, but the fact of the matter was that I was so exhausted from my 24 hours of travel that I had gone to bed at 8pm the night before. And I might have also had a 3 hour nap before that.  Needless to say, I was actually feeling pretty well rested and it was Sunday - which meant that in a few short hours I would be meeting the friend of the family who would be hosting me during my stay in Quebec. 

Okay, I know that sounds convoluted.  At this point I hadn't even met the host family I would be living with as they were currently in the Dominican Republic, having fled the perils of a Quebec winter for a splendid extended Christmas vacation.  Thus, to begin my French immersion adventure, I would be staying with one of their friends, whom I had also never met, for a couple of nights.  Living with a stranger who was a friend of strangers - talk about networking at its finest!

Welcome to Quebec!  It is as cold as it looks!

I checked out of the hostel at 9am, and hauled my enormous 50 pound bright blue flower-printed oversized suitcase out onto the sidewalk.  On my back I had my plus-sized, multi-compartmented backpack filled with my laptop, my camera and anything else that I consider particularly heavy or valuable.  I looped my purse/laptop bag over the handle of the suitcase and took my first steps forward into the snowy hilly streets. Solene's apartment, according to Google maps, was 1.3km away, which meant that - even though it was the middle of winter and freezing cold outside - I was going to walk.

It had snowed the day before and the streets were filled with massive puddles of slush.  At each intersection I had to stop to lift the monster suitcase I was lugging behind me over these puddles.  Aware of what I sight I must have been, I tried to convince myself that surely no one in the street was looking at me strangely because I was taking my suitcase for a morning walk.  It certainly didn't help that most of the 1.3 kilometre distance was at a slight incline up-hill.  Needless to say, by the time I arrived at the address, both of my arms were tired and I was feeling more than a little exercised.

There was a problem though with my destination however: it was not a home.  No, even with my limited knowledge of French, I could tell it was definitely a business. Do people live in flower shops here? I wondered to myself.  I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, my big suitcase behind me taking up most of the space on the narrow ledge, forcing people to practice a tightrope routine in order to pass me without stepping into traffic.  I pulled out my phone to text Solène, then hesitated.  Did she even speak or read English at all?  I didn't have the slightest clue. 

Sighing I opened Google translate, being grateful in my heart of hearts that my cellphone data plan was more than well equipped to handle the rigours of being in a foreign -national- city.  "Hello  Solène.  I am at your home but it seems to be a business?"  It was painstaking work, trying to read her texts as they flew at me in French, meanwhile trying to write my own responses and translate my own responses and re-write my own responses in the text box.  There was never created a more inefficient way to text!

Summarizing the conversation:
 Solène: She was outside her apartment now and I was not there.
 Solène: She thought maybe I had gone to the same address on the east side of Quebec, not the west side.
 Solène: She wanted to know what business I was in front of.
 Solène: She was outside of her apartment.
 Solène: Where was I?

As you might have noticed, there are no responses from me in that conversation. It didn't take me long to understand what was wrong: that I had indeed gone to the wrong address and was about a block away from where she actually lived. I kept trying to write a response in the midst of her flurry of texts and questions, but trying to write out my location in French was like one of those bad dreams when you are trying to run from a bear and you find out that your legs don't work, or they do and you start running in slow motion.

Finally, frustrated and realizing that I am literally a 2 minute walk away, I decide to ignore all her questions and type this message in English: "Longer to translate and type. Oui je est.  (Translation: Yes I east.)"  I grabbed my lovely suitcase again started walking.  I would explain everything, in French theoretically, when I arrived.